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2004 – Year of the Slave
You are a slave.
I know that\'s not what you want to hear as you hoist your New Year\'s
champagne, but it is the unpleasant truth that we all face going into
2004.
Movies and public school like to portray slaves as bound by chains and
beaten with whips, creating a polarized image of slavery that can be
pointed to with the comment, \"You are not like that, therefore you are
not a slave.\" But history shows that slaves have been treated in all
manner of ways, some more cruel than others, yet even with the most kind
treatment, a slave remains a slave.
Setting aside the stereotyped image of a slave as a bleeding chain-bound
wretch, slaves throughout history are often hard to recognize. In some
cases, such as the Medieval Serfs, they were held slaves to the rulers
by religious belief, and did not see themselves as slaves even though
they were treated as such.The favored slaves of Asian potentates wore
jewels to make a movie star gasp, yet were still slaves for all their
finery and comfort.
So, what is a slave? How do we define a slave? What test do we use to
tell if someone is a slave. What makes them different from free people?
Free people can say \"no\". Free people can refuse demands for their
money, time, and children. Slaves cannot. There is no freedom without
the freedom to say \"no\". If someone demands that you do something and
you can say \"no\" and refuse to do it, then you are a free human being.
If you can be forced to do something or surrender something that you do
not wish to, then you are a slave. No other test need be applied.
When you are forced to surrender half your life\'s work to the government
in ever-increasing taxes, then you are a slave.Throughout history,
slaves were expected to perform the work needed for their own upkeep,
then perform additional work for the rulers. For Roman slaves, the ratio
of work-for-self versus work-for-rulers was about 50-50. The same ratio
applied to Medieval Serfs, and even to the slaves of the American south.
And, when you add up all the overt taxes, covert fees, tariffs, excises,
plus the increased price you pay for products to pay the taxes of the
companies that make those products, you will find that Americans are at
that same \"half-for-self\" versus \"half-for-rulers\" ratio! Can you say
\"no\" to the confiscation of half of your life? Can you even get the
masters to maybe reduce the burden by a significant amount? No?
Congratulations. You are a slave.
The masters have decided they want wars on anyone living over oil. The
idea is that it is better for American corporations to steal the oil
they need than to pay for it. Millions of Americans (and millions more
around the globe) did not want the war, but the masters started them
anyway, by lying to the people. Could you refuse the war? Can you refuse
being lied to? No? Congratulations. You are a slave.
The rulers want your children for their future wars. Legislation for a
draft is already in Congress. Can you refuse the confiscation of your
children? No? Congratulations. You are a slave.
The government has been caught lying over and over again to the people,
from who really did 9-11, to the legality of the tax system, to Cheney\'s
Energy Task Force papers, to Saddam\'s WMDs. Americans are the most
lied-to people on Earth. Can you refuse to be lied to? Can you punish
the liars? No? Congratulations. You are a slave.
Vote fraud is rampant in the nation, and the mandated imposition of
audit-less electronic voting systems means that elections will be
decided (as Stalin admitted) not by those who vote but by those who
count the vote. Can you refuse a dishonest voting process? No?
Congratulations. You are a slave.
Just because you cannot see the slave-chains doesn\'t mean they are not
there. Chains made of steel are obvious, but chains made of beliefs are
not always recognized for what they are. Hitler enslaved the German
people to war with a belief that Poland was about to invade. LBJ
enslaved the American people to war with the belief that Vietnam had
attacked the USS Maddox in the Gulf of Tonkin. Poland wasn\'t invading.
There were no torpedoes in the Gulf of Tonkin, but the slaves, held by
invisible chains of beliefs, went to war. Millions died.
In 2003, however, the chains started to become visible. The
Constitutional right to freedom of expression was confined to
\"free-speech\" zones. A slave may have an opinion, so long as it is not
expressed where it might upset the other slaves. The Constitutional
right to an armed populace, the means by which the men who set up a
nation of free citizens hoped to keep them free, is under constant
attack from those who fear a nation of free citizens, and who will not
sleep soundly until we are a nation entirely of slaves. Armed citizens
can, after all, say \"no\" and make it stick. That was why there was a
Second Amendment, to allow the people to say \"no\" to those who would
return them to the slavery they had so recently escaped from. Other
Constitutional rights and protections have been set aside. The
government can now search through your private records without cause and
without warrant, even break into your home and not have to tell you.
Simply by declaring a citizen an enemy combatant, the government can now
lock up US citizens without a charge and without a lawyer. You can be
prevented from traveling simply for having the wrong name. If you
purchase too much gold or take home too much cash, or hoard food, the
government will take notice. Having a Farmer\'s Almanac is grounds for
suspicion. Talking about the Constitution is now deemed grounds to
suspect a terrorist link. Torture is now espoused as \"necessary\" to
\"deal with the crisis\". Were you able to refuse those changes to the
Constitution? No? Congratulations. You are a slave.
The government (at all levels) has borrowed trillions of dollars and
stuck your kids with the payments. Children not even born will be paying
off the bills. To declare the lives of children not yet born, let alone
old enough to vote, indentured to the state is slavery most obvious and
odious. Can you refuse responsibility for payments on debts the
government incurred without your permission? No? Congratulations. You
are a slave.
The government has borrowed so much money that it has long ago run out
of gold to pledge as collateral on the debts. Starting in Nixon\'s
administration, natural resources were used as collateral for the
mounting debts. Borrow more money, promise a chunk of public lands as
collateral. These land pledges were concealed behind \"Environmentalism\"
to disguise the real purpose. Numerous names such as \"Wilderness
Reserve\", \"Wetland\", \"Heritage River\", and so forth were used to conceal
the true scale of the confiscations. But the end result was the same.
Huge tracts of public land containing natural resources were walled away
from the public that owned them, mortgaged to the holders of the US
Government debt. We are well on our way from being citizens, to being
mere tenants. Were you able to refuse having your public lands placed at
risk by the US Government to cover loans you never authorized the
government to make? No? Congratulations. You are a slave.
Trust funds under government control are being looted, from the Social
Security trust fund to Native American trust accounts to Federal
Retirement Funds. Congress pays lip service to the looting of Social
Security, but considers only more taxes to cover the looted shortfall.
Meanwhile, court cases over other looted trust accounts drag on without
resolution. Are you able to refuse corrupt and dishonest government? No?
Congratulations. You are a slave.
You are a slave because the ruling class can do what they want, take
what they want, and you cannot refuse. You may have freedom to decide
what TV channel to watch tonight, or just which style car you will drive
to your work in, but little power over the rest of your life. Even that
home you have worked to pay for over the last decade can be taken from
you at a moment\'s notice via \"eminent domain\". Can you refuse? No?
Congratulations. You are a slave.
In October 2001 I wrote that more damage would be done to our nation by
those claiming to save us from the terrorists than by any actual
terrorist act. Even as Bush claimed that the terrorists hated the US
because of our freedoms, he took what few remaining freedoms we had away
until we are more watched, more spied on, more limited, more silenced,
more taxed, and more enslaved that at any other time in our nation\'s
history. Not only are we slaves, we are at last starting to see that we
have been slaves all along. We did not have rights, because a right
cannot be taken away. What we had were indulgences, granted by the
masters to the slaves, to be removed when the masters grow fearful of
the slaves\' resentment and anger.
I know this is a very depressing article to read on the New Year, but I
have watched through 2003 as people I care about lost their homes and
businesses, as the labors of a lifetime evaporated in stock market
manipulations by corporate crooks.These Americans who had worked hard to
achieve the American dream lost it all through no fault of their own.
Our schools are broke, hospitals under-staffed, the roads and bridges
and rails of the nation are crumbling while billions of dollars are
given away to foreign nations, favored cronies, and the ravenous war
machine. The priorities of the government that feeds on taxes seems
focused everywhere but on those who pay those taxes. And we can\'t seem
to refuse that either.
I think the state of the nation can be summed up by a simple contrast.
Tommy Chong is in jail for selling a pipe, while Ken Lay walks around a
free man with the billions he stole from his employees and investors.
Any way you slice it, that\'s a pretty screwed up situation.
I promised a reader that I would make some predictions for 2004 in this
article. I wish I hadn\'t because I am hoping I am wrong on most of them.
1. There will be another fake terror attack. The Neocon war agenda
cannot move forward without it. Those who hoped Iraq would be the end of
the wars are in for a rude shock. The hawks want the entire planet,
either directly ruled by the US, or ruled by obedient puppet regimes.
Another \"attack\" is needed.
2. The US will eventually lose their war of conquest of the world. The
US does not have enough troops to garrison the planet, and as Hitler
learned much too late, merely having superior weapons isn\'t going to win
a war when you\'ve pissed off absolutely everyone else in the world. On a
more practical level, sooner or later the US will wind up at war with
someone who really DOES have nuclear weapons of mass destruction. That
this is the government plan is witnessed by the numerous underground
facilities which have been built or upgraded in recent years. You paid
for them, but you won\'t be allowed in them. Such an attack on the US is
small price to pay for those who promote these wars, not for America,
but for another nation standing by while its victims are tricked into
fighting each other.
3. Minus a war, the US Government will eventually collapse as did the
Soviet Union, dragged down by debt and corruption. As the final collapse
looms closer, look for the looting of the nation to become even bolder
than it is now. The last official act of any government is to loot the
nation.
4. I am opposed to violence. I wish it could be avoided but I do believe
that this nation is headed towards a collision between the rulers and
the ruled. The government fears this as well or we wouldn\'t see so much
bullet-proof Lexan between us and our \"public servants\". I think that
the reason we have not seen it yet is that Americans have been
conditioned to expect a hero or savior to come and make things right. We
know things have gone wrong, but we are waiting for someone else to fix
it, Superman, the cavalry riding to the rescue, Spartacus, the Messiah,
Batman, What Really Happened, etc. This belief that one should wait
quietly for a hero is part of the slavery mechanism, to keep you in your
place, rendering unto Caesar, breeding more slaves, waiting for
salvation that never comes. However, as history has shown, even the
patience of an entire people can run out, and I predict that when the
final upheaval comes, it will arrive as suddenly as that which occurred
in Romania. In November 1989, Romania seemed stable under the rule of
Nicholai Ceausescu. One month later, a sporting event erupted into a
spontaneous political protest and on December 25th, Nicholai Ceausescu
was tried and sentenced to death. Ceausescu proved that tyrants should
not confuse silence with consent. The Romanian people finally realized
that nobody was coming to save them, and they had the courage to save
themselves. The collapse of the USSR was equally rapid and almost as
unexpected. So shall it be in the US.
Like I said above, I hope I am wrong in my forecasts. However it is
clear that the US Government is under the control of individuals intent
on personal enrichment, or loyalty to a foreign nation above our own,
and seeing no reason at all not to continue on their present course.
Confrontation seems inevitable.
The founding fathers set up a nation in which government was by the
consent of the people. We The People agreed to certain obligations, and
the government we allowed to care for our national sovereignty agreed to
abide by certain limits set forth in the Constitution. The present
government has broken the agreement, discarding the Constitutional
limits on their power and authority while at the same time piling more
and more obligations onto the people. Were you able to refuse them? No?
This more than any of the other reasons is why you have ceased to be a
free human being, and are now a slave.
You are a slave. When you live under a government that takes your wealth
and your children and lies to you to keep you docile and scares you to
keep you obedient, how can it be otherwise?
You are a slave. You can stay that way, or not. It\'s that simple. Nobody
is coming to save you. There are no heroes, no cavalry riding to the
rescue. Whether you and your children will live as slaves or as free
human beings is entirely up to you.
What Really Happened
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